Entries tagged with lectures

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Furball Hall

Entry tags:

Okay Day, Better night

Last night's project was a round tuit one. Took all the 500 slides from Costco out of their boxes (50 at a time) and put them back into their albums, this time attempting to put them in order of some sort. Discovered that about 100 (which are on the floor of the 3rd BR) were from my 1970s Peace Corps time. I knew there were some, I didn't realize how many. When I transferred them from the DVD, I remember sending many of them to my 1975-77 folder.

And I went through the 10 sets of scans, re-assigning them by location (Bali, Singapore, Malaysia, Phuket, Southern Thailand). Those are here (click).

This is one reason I went to Bali:

and this is the other:

Today: Up and out in time, for a change. Domino barfed in the bedroom and pooped in the livingroom, so no treats for her for a while. Barf is from eating treats in vacuum mode. Poop is just plain unacceptable. Her litterbox is automatic, it should last two weeks with just her.

Work started well, the demo I gave worked fine, Automation Guy was pleased. And now I see I am supposed to attend the weekly automation team meetings. Grrr.

Spent the day researching and actually finding video clips for testing Teletext. There are two kinds. One, mostly used in Germany, makes the whole screen into an ugly almost ASCII display- worse, really, looks like a bad bitmapped font. It usually is a news feed or a broadcaster's list of upcoming programs. The other, mostly used by the BBC, is ugly bitmapped subtitles. Both are carried in a hidden signal line on analog (similar to closed captions) which get converted into hidden packet streams on digital. All our box is supposed to do is pass those packets untouched and unharmed.

Lunchtime started at Costco, where I dropped off (and paid for) 462 slides to be scanned. I think this is the last of the 1989 vacation.

Home after work, just enough time to open the packages. One was the camera adapter tube for the telescope, the right diameter this time. I was able to fit a telescope lens inside and attach the camera. No time to try it, and it looks like rain all the rest of the week. Also received the rent bill. Down from last time. But the experiment of using a space heater is a FAIL. $25 more for juice than last month.

Off to the library, got there 10 minutes into the 90-minute tutorial on a 3D printing program called Sketchup. The presenter is a very good teacher, he did a great job of showing how to use the basics of the program, first 2D then 3D. It's about as feature-filled as PhotoShop, but it's free and looks it. Worth missing BASFA for.

Home by way of Lucky's, where I got everything on my list. Short list, just bananas, limes, TV dinners and Klondike bars. And enteric baby aspirin. Bleach and detergent should have been on the list so I got those too. I also picked up a catnip toy for Domino. She ignored it.

Home, made dinner. Leftover fried chicken and a box of cheesed and baconed potato skinettes from Lucky's frozen foods section. Thin mint ice cream for dessert.

Watched some of the NFL Combine, but the commentators won't shut up, and they don't say anything useful. So those have been deleted from my Tivo list. Caught up on TMZ.

Changed the litterbox. Just in case.

Printed the rent check, but won't walk it over there till the 28th. Need my paycheck to cover it (paid a chunk of my London vacation charges this month).

Did my taxes from scratch. Somehow, when I imported from last year's return, TurboTax was trying to credit me for stock loss carry-overs which I am not due. That could have gotten ugly. Finished around midnight, e-filed and will be getting about a grand back from Messrs. Obama and Brown.

Plans for tomorrow
Work
Maybe come home and study lines.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Home

Entry tags:

National Ineptitude Day

The day started out fine, with me rushing to make it to the library by 10 for a talk/showcase of all-electric cars. There was a line to get in the front door. Huh? Turns out the library opens at 10, the talks started at 10:30. The format was a multiple panels thing, which was done somewhat ineptly. They had four panels of 5 people each, each person was given a chance to pour their heart and soul out about their particular EV. So instead of finishing at 11:30 it took 2 hours. It would have worked a lot better (for me) if, instead of using every volunteer, they had designated one person per model.

There were two glaring common denominators to the panelists:
1. They were all over 40
2. They all owned a house (which gave them the opportunity to go solar and get paid to charge the car)

I'm now in that demographic, and my days of driving to Seattle or LA are done, so I'm in that demographic, except my roof won't support solar panels and part of the lease requires me to stay on the grid (the park provides our electricity & gas feeds).

Two of the women on the panel were so jazzed about their cars that they are now working for the dealership selling them. Both were at the point of "retire or 3rd career?"

I just bought my Corolla in May, but maybe it's time to look into an EV. After the talk we went to the parking lot where all the panelists had their cars on display, plus a couple of models which had been parked by dealers but not represented by a human. Talking with the folks and looking at the cars, the Nissan Leaf looks like a good fit for me. Hybrids don't have enough trunk room because they have two engines and a battery pack and a gas tank. But pure electrical cars only have the smaller electric engine and the battery pack is in a less obnoxious location. There were a couple of Rav4s, but they are too big and ugly as a brick. Some of the other models are more like enclosed golf carts. I was telling one guy that I needed something my baritone horn would fit in, and he plays bass so he knows that's not a problem.

The initial price might be a show-stopper, but my Corolla is new enough to get almost as much back as I paid for it. Maybe more because they gave me a generous trade-in. Hmmm.

While at the talk, I used Great Clips' app to "check in". By the time I got there, it had expired. But it didn't matter because checking in does nothing for you. You still have to wait in the order that you physically arrived. Inept. Which for me was 25 minutes. Very inept. More inept was the trainee at the check-in. Okay, Plan B was to chill out at Starbucks in the Safeway next door but inept cashier was arguing (politely) about a customer trying to use a Safeway coupon. As it turns out, they don't accept Starbucks apps, they are on Safeway's register system. Customer decided to pay for an armful of groceries there. I walked out.

This store has a set of tables and chairs with umbrellas, which kept them dry. They are tolerant of homeless folks parking there all day, and there was some interesting chat by a woman telling a friend all about her morning appointment with the psychologist. When she was done I wandered back to wait another 10 minutes for the haircut. The list got confused because one guy came in with his son, and the trainee couldn't understand that he woud skip his turn so he could watch the kid, and then get cut by the same barber.

Next stop was Kaiser, to pick up some insulin and test strips and load up on B&D alcohol swabs. But there was a long, slow line and I needed to pee, which reminded me I was due for my quarterly lab tests, and one of them was pee-in-the-cup. The lab was almost empty, now serving 41 and I was 43. That all went well, but the line at the pharmacy was a prime example of inept layout and staffing. Huge banners all over proclaim that they will ship your prescription for free if you order online, but it ignores three things:
They won't ship insulin
They won't ship OTC items
It can take 2 weeks to get the stuff they do ship
Inept.

Half an hour later I had my items, and went to the Starbucks across the street, where they were very ept, and there was a place to sit and read (the tables are too small for a laptop and mouse), and there was some eye candy from Kaiser but more from the Korean supermarket.

Weather was still blustery and intermittently raining, so I went home. Pulling out of the parking lot, I tried to use the split screen in the backup camera, and found that the Kenwood had forgotten it could do that. When I got home I re-updated the firmware, which seemed to fix it, but it forgot after 5 minutes.

While I was messing with it, I went back inside, went online and found instructions on Garmin's site on how to upload points of interest (POI) from files I'd backed up on the PC. Followed the directions, but instead of adding POIs it erased the entire map and all its built-in POIs. I tried to do and "update maps" but it insisted I had the latest map.

I emailed support, but they will probably want me to buy a map SD card for $100. Meanwhile, one more reason to get a Leaf. It has a really nice GPS, and the woman who became a salesperson played classical music on its sound system,and it sounded great.

One other chore I did was once again unfurl the flags. The American flag keeps winding itself around the pole, and the Thai flag makes one loop before it is stable. Tomorrow I'll that the pole down and store it and the flags until the weather calms down. I shouldn't be flying them in the rain, anyway.

Dinner was in two parts. A snack of roasted corn chowder, and later ravioli in Alfredo sauce with mixed veggies.

Plans for tomorrow:
Nothing in the morning
noon-ish, slog to the light rail and take it downtown, meet Janice to see an all-female cast production of 1776. I frankly did not like the two productions I've seen, and probably will like this one even less, but the level of talent is amazing, I have been on stage one place or another with more than half the cast.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home

Entry tags:

Kaffir Jaeger

Got up a little before 6 for no apparent reason, took my blood sugar and it was an all time low of 53. Dr. howeird prescribed ice cream with sprinkles. Followed by an egg cream.

Usually those hit me at 3 or 4 am, so going back to bed I slept through the alarm at 9:30, woke at about 10, and it was a chore to get out of the house by 12:30 to be in time for the library 1 pm presentation.

At 12:30 the room wasn't open yet, I had my laptop so I went online and ordered two pairs of briefs, which was on my list. Later I realized I had ordered a pair on Amazon while under the influence of sprinkles. It's okay, I can wear them all.

Also later remembered there were shirts in the washer to switch to the dryer.

The library presentation was on the care and feeding of fruit trees in this neck of the woods, by a master gardener who loved the subject and was a very engaging speaker. At the start of the show she ditched the lavalier mike for the hand-held one, under the mistaken impression that the latter was louder. It bit her constantly because she did a lot of gesturing and used her body to show what parts of a tree to prune. Can't hold the mike your mouth and do that at the same time. There was a lot of good info, and even though I didn't get a chance to ask about my lime tree, she gave all the hints I needed.

As I usually do when in the library, I looked at the books on CD section. Decided it was time, and checked out the Basic Vietnamese set. I ripped it to the PC and it's now on the iPod for car listening.

Inspired by the talk, I went to OSH and bought some stuff. It took a lot of walking around and weighing pros and cons, but finally settled on a 14" heavy tecate pot, not one of the tapered one, but one which is 14" diameter from top to bottom. Also got a stand-off to keep it above the clay dish I also bought, and also got the 14" wooden platform on rollers which was on the original list. And generic potting soil.

The hints I got were this:
- I had gotten the roots too wet
- The plastic bucket which the tree is in needs to be replaced by a clay one which breathes, evaporates water and drains better
- No fertilizer is needed, but soil which drains well should replace the moisture-holding stuff now in the pot
- Lime trees are drought-resistant and can stand temps as low as 30°. They survive frost
A huge part of the talk was about the fruit itself, but in the case of my lime tree, those lime are horrible, it is the leaves which are aromatic and yummy in Thai food.

And from the stuff on the ultimate Kaffir Lime web site:
- Find a way to make the air around the tree more humid
- Don't put it in a bigger pot

I was sort of also looking for a bigger tree, but they just had one smaller than mine.
And from another list, looked for a bird feeder, but their prices were ridiculous. $40 for the one I liked best. Did Amazon's scan thing, and found it online for half that. Almost bought bird seed, but will wait till I have the feeder.

Next stop, Northwinds nursery. They had a 3-year-old Kaffir which was rife with diseased and/or insect-chewed leaves, and they wanted $100 for it. Not a big selection of feeders, nothing to buy here.

Final stop, Home Depot. They had 3 trees, all the same as mine. I picked up some better potting soil marked as "quick drainage" and "for citrus". And also bought a plastic deep dish big enough to put under the pot and hold water to create a humidity field.

Home, unloaded everything, found a spot on the end of the driveway which I think gets enough sun, and staged the new stuff there. It was getting chilly and dark so I made a note to do the re-potting tomorrow before football.

And I wasted the rest of the day online, in front of the tube, and making dinner. Twice. Ravioli from frozen in Alfredo from a jar mixed with string cheese. And 2 hours later a grilled cheese sandwich on Health Nut bread with American Singles and very sharp cheddar. Made in an omelet pan with lots of margarine. Nailed it. Crispy golden brown bread, melty cheese.

Rescued the shirts from the dryer and hung them up. Decided to be OCD this time and arrange them from darkest to lightest, all the ones of the same color together, with the Hawaiian styled ones between the solids and the stripeds. I usually just hang them up in whatever random order they came out of the basket.

Thanks to some FB postings from

scendan, went online to see if the Tech Museum is open Monday, it is, so I think I will hobble the three blocks to the light rail station and take the train there to celebrate MLK's massive contributions to the world of technology, especially his influence on Star Wars. They allow non-flash photography, so I'll bring my 50mm f 1.1 and/or my 35mm f 1.8.

Plans for tomorrow:
Take the lime tree outside, shake the dirt off and re-pot it
Watch the Patriots play the Broncos
Maybe tweet rude remarks about it
Watch the Seahawks play the 49ers. Either way I win, but I have to say that I lean toward Seattle because they have the most beautiful logo in the NFL, and I love their colors. SF has, hands-down, the ugliest logo in the league, and the only place Red and Gold belong is in Chinese New Year parades.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Home

Entry tags:

No Brag

Finished the automation project, automation guy gave it his blessing and it is now part of the framework. Now I need to find four more test cases to do.

Lunch was at Thaibodia, woefully understaffed, worst Thai fried rice in the Bay Area. Except for the ones which use brown rice. #Gagme.

Boss' meeting ran late, so 1-on-1 delayed till tomorrow.

After work, Computer History Museum, member's reception and book talk by a writer about Bell Labs. Writer was a dull speaker, interviewer kept us from falling asleep. Got there at 6, plenty of food but nowhere to sit. They really need to figure out a way to put tables & chairs out in the lobby.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Little Sister is flying in from SEA at about noon. She'll drive to where I work, I'll take her to lunch, and to pet Domino & see my messy apartment, then back to work. She will drive to SCruz for an overnight followed by a one-day workshop. Really looking forward to seeing her and showing her where I work. Her workplace is top secret, so I can't visit her there.